It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

A much needed reminder of how weak my triceps have gotten. Over the past year and a half or so I've moved my bench press grip out wider and wider, allowing me to progress in weight more quickly but neglecting the weakest link in the chain. I was supposed to work up to a comfortable set of 4, and 265 was not comfortable. Could have maybe done 1-2 more reps, which at this weight is pretty weak.

Standing BTN press 135x3, 145x3, 155x3

Set an unusual PR in the BTN press in that I waited 11 minutes to do three sets that took me 3.5 minutes (including rest periods).

Leg extensions with top squeeze, 3s to failure

Read somewhere that these are good for quad tendonitis. Jury's still out.

Friday, October 16, 2015

So the bench press specialization routine I settled on is a 9-week program where you rotate different pressing exercises, rep ranges and intensities.Since I'll only be squatting and pulling once a week, I needed something to fill up the remaining 3 days, and thought this fits the bill nicely. You start out with one main pressing exercise and 4-5 supplemental ones, then gradually eliminate them until you're only doing the main one in week 9.

I have no illusions about setting new PRs and have pretty much written this year off training-wise. Hopefully I'll learn something new from this experiment and stay motivated - I've been struggling with gym motivation since my back/hip injury.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Barely made 305x7. Could not get the muscles to fire properly. Whole upper body was very sore and creaky. I think the current volume of heavy pressing (raw and SlingShot) is killing my bench press - I can't recover from two heavy workouts in 7 days.

Will probably take a deload week, then switch to a bench press specialization routine until my knee heals. Back to 3/5/1 as soon as I can squat pain free.

Seated cable rows 30 total reps - varied the grip and used different handles for a change.

Standing front press 30 total reps - started out with 115, bumped up to 120 at some point.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Leg press 50 total reps - upped the weight on the leg press and now I hate it again.

Seated leg curl 3s x 8-10

Lifting was solid, but my knee doesn't seem to be getting any better. I'm now facing a quandary. If I ignore the knee pain (it's not really affecting my squats) and keep increasing the weight on the bar, I have a chance of working back up to 5 plates before the end of the year. On the other hand, if I ignore the knee pain, it could get worse and possibly develop into something serious. Also I don't see any point in working up to LOL5pleat just so I could say I've done it - it won't change anything, or even feed my ego.

From the online research I've done, it looks like a simple case of quadriceps tendonitis, but it could become chronic if untreated. The options now are a) keep squatting and hope the knee makes it, or b) stop doing all quad-oriented work and wait for the tendon to recover. There might be a c) reduce lower body work to once a week, but that never really works when it comes to injuries.